UTHSC, VA Memphis Participate in National Blood Pressure Study

August 16, 2018

Karen C. Johnson

Researchers at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and the Memphis Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center were part of the SPRINT MIND (Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial Memory and Cognition IN Decreased Hypertension) multisite clinical trial, which last month released data showing aggressively lowering blood pressure reduces the risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and a combination of MCI and dementia.

The findings were presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Chicago in July.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was the primary sponsor of the SPRINT study, which started in the fall of 2009 and included more than 9,300 participants age 50 and older with hypertension who were at increased risk for cardiovascular disease. They were recruited from approximately 100 medical centers and clinical practices throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

UTHSC was a large SPRINT study site following 175 participants since the study launched. Karen C. Johnson, MD, MPH, College of Medicine Endowed Professor in Women's Health, is the principal investigator for the UTHSC SPRINT study site. Dr. Johnson is also national vice chair of the SPRINT Steering Committee.

The Memphis VA Medical Center, also a SPRINT study site, entered 1,660 participants at 25 VA medical centers within the SPRINT Veterans Affairs Clinical Center Network (CCN). William Cushman, MD, chief of Preventive Medicine at VA Memphis and professor of Preventive Medicine, Medicine and Physiology at UTHSC, serves as the principal investigator for the VA Network.

Dr. Barry Wall, also from VA Memphis, is the co-principal investigator for the SPRINT VA Clinical Center Network and principal investigator for the VA Memphis SPRINT clinical site that recruited 80 veterans for SPRINT.

Linda Nichols PhD, professor, and Jennifer Martindale-Adams, EdD, associate professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at UTHSC, are also VA CCN consultants for the SPRINT MIND study.

"To date, the results of SPRINT MIND provide the strongest evidence that by aggressively treating high blood pressure, there is a reduced risk of developing MCI or dementia," Dr. Johnson said.

In SPRINT MIND, the researchers found a 19 percent lower rate of new cases of MCI in the intensive blood pressure treatment group, where the systolic blood pressure goal was less than 120 mm Hg. The combined outcome of MCI plus probable all-cause dementia was also 15 percent lower in the intensive treatment group versus the standard blood pressure group. The new SPRINT MIND findings provide promise that individuals can take steps to lower their risk of mild cognitive impairment and dementia, and it could be as easy as lowering their systolic blood pressure levels.

"Getting busy clinicians to get to a lower blood pressure goal will require the patient and all the members of the healthcare team contributing," said Catherine Womack, MD, a SPRINT co-investigator and interim chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine and co-chief of the Division of Internal Medicine in the College of Medicine at UTHSC. "We were able to get patients to goal in SPRINT because we focused on an algorithm that required adjustment of blood pressure medications, if the individual participant was not at goal. As a result, the physician and the hypertensive patient will need to work together with regular visits to meet the lower target."

According to UTHSC, previous data from SPRINT already has had a world-wide impact on how people define hypertension and how doctors treat hypertension, with new blood pressure guidelines published by the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association in 2017.